Make sure you use a professional facilitator who understands your business and runs strategic planning meetings regularly.

Conduct external and internal research of the business before the meeting.

Collect employee’s thoughts and opinions and hold a series of pre-meetings if you have a large group of people who need to be involved.

Make sure everyone understands the process of the strategic planning steps upfront.

Strategic management should be habit not an event. Hold a strategy meeting more than once a year.

Strategic planning meetings are exhausting therefore a focus on the outcomes is critical than following an exact agendada. However have an agenda to maintain some structure. If you don't get through the agenda, plan another meeting or assign tasks for outstanding items.

Get everyone engaged by making sure they feel secure and comfortable in the right environment.

Address the elephant in the room with key people who have concerns beforehand.

End the session on a high note, ensure that the group discuss a future vision of success in real, tangible and inspiring terms, get them creating vivid images or descriptions of what success will look like and feel like.

Within a week of the planning meeting, send out agreed timelines that contains the next steps and deadlines for completing the plan.

Send a date for the next meeting to review the plan. Send out the plan whether it is complete or not.

Make the strategic planning meeting outcomes visible and communicated in a common work area.